Thirty years ago, a highly successful vilification campaign was launched against Mao Zedong, saying that a massive famine in which 27 to 30 million people died in China took place during the Great Leap period, 1958 to 1961, which marked the formation of the people’s communes under his leadership. The main basis of this assertion […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
Is the U.S. Government Prepared for a Greek Debt Default?
The European authorities are playing a dangerous game of “chicken” with Greece right now. It is overdue for U.S. members of Congress to exercise some oversight as to what our government’s role is in this process, and how we might be preparing for a Greek debt default. Depending on how it happens, this default could […]
The Right to Be Lazy
Instead of taking advantage of periods of crisis, for a general distribution of their products and a universal holiday, the laborers, perishing with hunger, go and beat their heads against the doors of the workshops. With pale faces, emaciated bodies, pitiful speeches they assail the manufacturers: “Good M. Chagot, sweet M. Schneider, give us work, […]
Turkey Cools Down Tempers over Syria
As Monday dawned, Turkey kept its fingers crossed in keen anticipation of the nationwide address by President Bashar al-Assad on the situation in Syria. Ankara sent an open message ahead of Assad’s speech that if he failed to announce reforms even in a third attempt, he would “miss a big chance” to preserve power. Turkey […]
The System
Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 20 June 2011. Cf. Victor Mallet, “Spain Protesters Turn Anger against Brussels” (Financial Times, 19 June 2011); Paula Díaz and Ana Requena, “El […]
All These People
“Where did all these people come from?” “Who cares! Don’t stop. They don’t belong to our circles.” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona. This cartoon was first published in his blog on 19 June 2011 under a Creative Commons license. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. Victor Mallet, […]
Debtocracy
In March 2011, a group of people from different political backgrounds took the initiative to demand the formation of an Audit Committee in Greece. Academics, writers, artists, union representatives all over the world supported this initiative. The Audit Committee will find which parts of the debt are odious or illegitimate and will prove that, […]
Greek Protesters Are Better Economists Than the European Authorities
Imagine that in the worst year of our recent recession, the United States government decided to reduce its federal budget deficit by more than $800 billion dollars — cutting spending and raising taxes to meet this goal. Imagine that, as a result of these measures, the economy worsened and unemployment soared to more than 16 […]
Workers in Neocapitalist Romania
David A. Kideckel. Getting By in Postsocialist Romania: Labor, the Body, and Working-Class Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008. xii + 266 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-253-34957-6; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-253-21940-4. During the last twenty years, Romanian mass media and most Romanian intellectuals have typically portrayed the miners of the Jiu Valley in Romania […]
Iraq: It’s Still about Oil
Provocative suggestion: Obama’s increasingly desperate efforts to abrogate Bush’s Dec 31 withdrawal deadline and continue the military occupation may reflect, among other considerations, the need to protect the US drilling companies’ business. . . . American drilling companies stand to make tens of billions of dollars from the new petroleum activity in Iraq long before […]
Greece
Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 17 June 2011. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. “Varoufakis Says Greece’s Papandreou ‘On His Last Legs’” (Bloomberg, 16 […]
Russia, Turkey, and the US Push for Regime Change in Syria
Seldom it is that the Russian Foreign Ministry chooses a Sunday to issue a formal statement. Evidently, something of extreme gravity arose for Moscow to speak out urgently. The provocation was the appearance of a United States guided missile cruiser in the Black Sea for naval exercises with Ukraine. The USS Monterrey cruiser equipped with […]
European Integration at the Crossroads: Deepening or Disintegration?
Are the member states of the Eurozone responsible for the Euro crisis the ones having problems servicing their debt? The majority of people in Europe believe that this is the case. Therefore, indebted countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland must subject themselves to a brutal austerity program of savage cuts in welfare spending, diminishing […]
Anonymous Leaders of the Movement of the “Indignant” in Greece
On Friday, the blogs which are guiding the movement of “indignant” citizens published a statement of the “indignant” citizens in Syntagma Square that called on the left forces to leave the squares. Thus, the “anonymous” leaders of the “movement of the squares,” the “non-partisan,” “spontaneous,” “non-politicized” citizens, appear to be politicized, declaring themselves “anti-left.” Perhaps […]
Interview with Jean Bricmont: NATO Powers’ Push for Syria Intervention Proves “There’s No Limit to How Crazy They Can Be”
Jean Bricmont: There’s no limit to how crazy they can be. They haven’t finished the war with Libya, which was supposed to last days, not weeks, not months. Now it’s been months, they say another three months. So they haven’t even finished Libya yet, and they are maybe going to go to another war […]
Russia Opposes Any UN Resolution on Syria
RIA Novosti Russia is against any UN resolution on Syria as the situation in the country is not threatening to global security, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday. Britain and France submitted a new draft resolution on Syria on Wednesday. The UN Security Council will vote on the document in the next […]
Turkey’s Not-So-Subtle Shift on Syria
An old story from Istanbul in the Ottoman era mentions a Turkish imam who killed a Christian and confessed the crime, whereupon he was advised by the judge to talk things over with the mufti who told him privately that a good Muslim never admitted felony against infidels and he should simply recant his confession. […]
Russia’s U-Turn
Russia went to the Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting at Deauville as an inveterate critic of the “unilateralist” Western intervention in Libya, but came away from the seaside French resort as a mediator between the West and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The United States scored a big diplomatic victory in getting Moscow to work […]
25,000 People March in Tel Aviv in Support of Palestinian State Based on 1967 Borders
About 25,000 people took part in a march in central Tel Aviv on Saturday evening supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. The march ended with a rally at the Tel Aviv Museum. MKs Dov Khenin (Hadash), Daniel Ben-Simon (Labor), Nino Abesadze (Kadima), and Zahava Galon (Meretz); the Mayor of […]
Greece: PAME Occupies Finance Ministry, Calls for General Strike
Since early this morning, PAME members have symbolically occupied the Ministry of Economy and Finance, calling upon workers to rise up and stop the government’s barbaric anti-labor measures. All out for the demonstration today, Omonoia Square, 7 PM. General Strike! The All Workers Militant Front, PAME, is a coordination center of Greek trade unions, founded […]
